Prepping to Move From Slow Finance Company to Fast Big Tech One

Great question - commenting here to follow.

Also just wanted to add I think you wrote this out really well.

I also made a switch a long time ago from traditional industries (energy and banking) to tech companies. Although that was when I was doing internships and not a full time employee, I think my experience might help.

You already covered the hard skills part. Definitely all the references from Taro you posted will help you and your attitude tells me you’re already working on your onboarding.

With that said, I think the the biggest shock for you will probably be the company’s culture and hierarchy. In traditional companies, it may be uncommon that managers have regular 1-1s with their reports for example, and still use waterfall project management instead of Agile.

So, try to make the most of your meetings with your manager. You mentioned this is a contract position, do you think about getting a permanent one? If yes you should signal this early and ask for constant feedback on how you can achieve that since you only have six months. Still on the meetings topic, understand what are the ceremonies your team does (daily sync up, planning, retrospective, monthly demo days) and be active. It’s likely that your previous company didn’t have that.

These are all generalizations of course, but in summary what I would do in your place is to study hard Instacart’s culture and try my best to adapt fast.

Congratulations on your new job and best of luck!

I think you're doing great in terms of preparation, overall mentality, and writing this post! Building off of the communication angle, the relationships portion is particularly critical. There is so, so, soooo much value in becoming that well-liked friendly face. I would go through this if you haven't already (and if you have, revisit it): [Masterclass] How To Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech

If you have a strong internal network, everything will naturally fall into place as people give you the right feedback to adjust your behavior and mentality properly.

Thank you Luciana and Alex!

One thing I just thought of, would it be weird/harmful if I asked a stakeholder I spoke with after getting the offer if they have any suggestions for preparation? I imagine it would be since I haven't heard back from my manager on things to look over before starting.